Settling and Bodily Control

Abstract

In A Metaphysics for Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Helen Steward develops a distinctive account of agency designed to support her argument for ‘Agency Incompatibilism’. I argue that Steward’s account of agency has two main shortcomings. First, the extension of the agency concept Steward is committed to is problematic. Second, Steward’s account of agency turns out on inspection to have significant structural affinities to the accounts it is meant to oppose, and thus faces similar potential problems. One of these problems has to do with Steward’s conception of bodily control.